Kismet Read online

  K I S M E T

  Sarah Michelle Lynch

  Copyright © Sarah Michelle Lynch, 2019

  The moral right of Sarah Michelle Lynch to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. You must not circulate this book without the authority to do so.

  All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  For more info: sarahmichellelynch.com

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Epilogue

  Also by the Author

  For those waiting

  for the right time

  K I S M E T

  a

  n o v e l

  “Timing. We give it many names: Destiny, Fate, Kismet, the will of God. Whatever we call it, lives are changed and moulded by it, in small or drastic ways beyond our control. The precise, exquisite influence of timing moves people into new positions as surely as a spring flood rearranges the landscape. It is as unavoidable as life.”

  Helen Van Slyke

  Chapter One

  Frith Street

  Why are we sluts—but not together? I don’t know. It happened a couple of years ago… He and I met and became friends. To this day, we still like one another, but we slut around with other people, then tell each other all about it over drinks. We don’t slut together—just with other people. (Yeah, I know…)

  Ruben’s piercing green eyes assess me across the table. It’s always the same spot in the same Soho pub on Frith Street, each and every Friday night. It’s the most tucked-away table imaginable, good for illicit conversations. I’ve been telling him about last night’s assignation…

  This once, he looks disappointed.

  “So, let me see if I got this right?” His eyes flash with something—mockery, I think.

  “Hmm.” I don’t like his amused tone of voice, pulling my jacket tight around me. Even the added wainscoting in this dreary old pub (can never remember the name of it) fails to warm the room, come rain or shine. It being winter, I suppose I should have worn more than just a jacket tonight, but still, needs must. I won’t be beaten down by weather into ignoring my need to look good.

  “You met him in the cinema? While watching a film?”

  “Yeah.” It’s not a big deal and I don’t know why he’s making it into something.

  “You didn’t know him, at all?”

  “No.” I shake my head, then shrug. “But I knew he was hot. Even in the dark I could see that.”

  “And then while his girlfriend went to the bathroom, you wanked him off?”

  “It was dark. There was nobody behind us. He was hot.”

  Ruben throws his head back laughing. “Oh my god, Freya. Come on!”

  I fold my arms. “It was a couple of minutes of harmless fun. By the way, she didn’t seem very interested in the film. He was. That tells me they’re not compatible. Explains her repeated trips to the bathroom.”

  “Uh, Freya… it’s no way unusual for a woman to use the bathroom a lot, but particularly if she’s pregnant, right?”

  Bugger, hadn’t thought of that. The man was probably gagging for it if his wife was spewing and/or peeing all the time and not wanting to wank her husband off (I haven’t told Ruben about the wedding ring the guy was wearing). I also haven’t told him about the stockings and short skirt I was wearing that night, nor that I sat next to the guy and his wife on purpose because I’m like that—I enjoy the attention of men who are already with someone. Maybe I care what Ruben thinks of me, or maybe I don’t want him to know all my secrets—yet. It wasn’t a lucky conquest after all, it was a cinch if the man was horny enough to risk his wife catching him with his cock out in front of some random woman. Maybe I didn’t turn the man’s head, just my hand did, or rather what my hand could do for him. Well, now I feel crap… although, I did get something out of it, so, there’s that.

  Ruben’s still shaking his head. “How—and I mean this with the greatest of respect—how do two strangers communicate that one of them is willing to pull off the other? In. Public.”

  I smirk, I can’t help it. “Piss off, Ruben.”

  “He can’t have been that interested in the film either, if he was making eyes with you.”

  I giggle, shaking my head. “It was just a bit of fun.”

  “Risky fun,” he says, his tone challenging.

  Sometimes, like right now, I feel I might be happy if I never saw Ruben again. He’s insinuating it’s not enough that I’m a slut—that I’ve also begun to need risk in order to get off.

  Maybe I do, but should that be any worry of his? We are, after all, just mates.

  He sounds accusatory right now, like he’s actually, for once, ashamed of me.

  I don’t get it.

  “It’s the same as you meeting a woman in a bar and then fucking her in the toilets. It’s actually probably not as bad as that because I didn’t fuck him. I just wanked him off, then I rested my coat over my lap and let him finger me until I came… twice.”

  I think back to it, happily… Trying not to moan and pant in a public place was arousing in itself.

  I watch Ruben swallow uncomfortably. Is he jealous? Disgusted? Does he hate me?

  His cheeks become a little more scarlet. “Well, at least you got some, I suppose.”

  I toss back my gin and tonic, standing up to leave. Before I go, I look down on him and stare, asking him telepathically to tell me why we even do this. WHY? I don’t know, not anymore.

  “Is it because his girlfriend was there that you sound… annoyed?”

  “No,” he says, “no. I’ve done riskier stuff, you know that. I couldn’t care less about that. But at least when I do stuff, we chat first, have a drink, converse, you know? I make them human. The past few times you’ve done stuff with people, it’s like you’d rather they weren’t real, you know?”

  I shake my head. Doesn’t he understand why I’m like this? Does he have to give me such a hard time? Doesn’t he get why they can’t be real… why…

  “Fuck you, Ruben. I hope whichever woman you have bouncing on your cock later tonight enjoys the frigidity. See ya.”

  I storm out and half expect
him to follow me and apologise, but he doesn’t. All the way to the tube on Leicester Square, the heat in my cheeks increases until I can’t take it anymore. I put my head down and let the tears flow, pushing my way through crowds at the same time as trying to hide my face. Even now, I’m willing him to follow me and make a gesture, or something. Anything.

  But no, there’s nothing.

  I ride the hateful underground, avoiding people’s stares and armpits, yet dramatically failing on all counts.

  I can’t do this, not anymore.

  An hour later, I’m home. Ruben may be London-based, but I’m not. I always have to change trains whenever I travel to London from Old Windsor, where I live. My parents’ house is still my address right now. I could try and move out, but I’d probably only get as far as the caravan at the end of the yard. And this is on hotel manager wages, too.

  Mum catches me in the hallway as I’m about to fly up the stairs. “Home early, love?”

  “Oh… you know. Wasn’t feeling it tonight.” I pretend to straighten my jacket on the clothes peg even though there’s no straightening to do.

  “Well, plenty in the cupboards.”

  “Yeah… thanks, Mum.”

  If I were much younger, she’d shepherd me into the living room and ask lots of open-ended questions with a tea tray on hand and a concerned look in her eye. These days she knows it’s much too late for all that.

  As it happens, I am hungry, having not eaten since I clocked off work earlier. However, if I do enter the kitchen and make myself some food, I will either be grinned at by my obnoxious little brother or receive some barbed comment from Dad. I’m never home early on a Friday night and my father knows why. Usually after I’ve met Ruben for a drink, I go hunting for some kind of man to actually have sex with. Tonight, I’m not in the mood for any of that. I think it was his disapproval—or whatever it was he was giving me—it’s put me off seeking anything else but a pillow to cry into.

  Ruben and I have both done way riskier things than fondle some stranger in a public place, but for some reason Ruben has recently developed a moralistic disapproval of where I do stuff—and with whom. I bet he’d love it if he could pass me around his friends, just so he knows who I’m with and can picture it easier that way.

  I open the door to my bedroom and lock it behind me, then fling myself onto the bed. It’s days like today when I just feel shit about myself, and it’s becoming more common that he’s the one to blame for rousing my conscience. Not that I should feel guilty for enjoying myself carnally—just that Ruben seems to think I should. Which is strange, because I’ve never slept with him and he doesn’t have any right to pass judgement on what I do or don’t do.

  When my phone rings, I tell myself not to look at the screen. Don’t even bother. Ignore it… whoever it is. Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.

  However, when it continues ringing, I can ignore it no longer.

  The screen tells me it’s him.

  Fucking hell.

  Do I answer? Or not.

  Should I even be upset about tonight?

  Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill.

  “Yes?” I answer, trying my hardest to sound bored already.

  “Oh… hey.”

  It’s his voice, but for some reason, it doesn’t sound like him.

  “Ruben?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.” He sounds blunt, clipped, ragged—sort of hurt.

  “What’s wrong?” I’m afraid there’s more happening here than I thought.

  “Can I come over?”

  While my brain tries to process this—that is, a friend is simply asking to come over—another part of me, my body, begins mildly panicking. Is he serious? We’re just friends who exchange dirty anecdotes, nothing more. If he comes here, it’ll give my family the wrong idea.

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Can I come over, or not?”

  I dab my face with the back of my hand, trying not to smear the sweat gathering on my forehead. This collision of worlds was not what I expected today.

  “You’ll miss the last train now, there’s no point in you trying to get here.”

  “I’ll get a cab.”

  “A cab?”

  “You know, one of those black things on wheels.”

  I’m trying not to smile even though I know he can’t see it from where he is. “It’ll cost a fortune. Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t understand—”

  “I need to see you, Frey. Please,” he begs, sounding desperate.

  “You’re frightening me, Rube,” I reply, using his nickname, as he just used mine. “You made me feel shit tonight, you know. This isn’t you.”

  I have to breathe deeply to avoid sobbing. He almost sounds as traumatised as I feel right now, but I don’t want him to know I’m sharing this same pain.

  “Can I come? I’ll explain everything. I just want to talk. We can meet wherever you like. A park bench if you want. Just, please, Frey. Say you’ll see me.”

  He sounds tired and a bit more drunk than when I left him.

  Eventually I resign myself. “If you run, you may catch the last train.”

  Of course, he may well make the last train, but I was trying to put him off.

  Who knows what will go down tonight?

  All I know is that things between us are fucked up, but it appears, I’m not the only one who feels this way.

  Chapter Two

  The Oxford Blue

  Leafy is the best word to describe the large village in which I grew up and have yet to leave. Celebrities buy up property here and though it be small, thousands pass through this place every week when they stay in my hotel, which happens to be convenient for London or Heathrow, or even our more well-known neighbour, which boasts the magnet for tourists that is Windsor Castle. I spent my childhood escaping my parents’ house at any opportunity, sneaking down lanes we weren’t supposed to, falling into becks not meant for swimming and snogging boys who’d escaped Eton to grab sausage and chips and got corrupted by us village girls with short skirts, no morals, no cares, just a lot of hairspray and fake tan.

  Ruben couldn’t be more different to the boys I grew up telling myself were my type. I always went for guys who were a little sick looking, like they needed a good feed or something—someone I could make a difference to. Ruben doesn’t need me at all. He’s together, or at least I think he is, and he is solid and tanned (not from a bottle). He challenges me but in a good way and I know he has a brain in there, which might just be the most attractive thing about him.

  On the phone I told him to meet me at the Oxford Blue, a pub just a short walk from my parents’ house on Crimp Hill, one of those endless Berkshire lanes dotted with a few houses but mostly consisting of trees, hedges, offshoot lanes and lots of fields. I’m already at the bar ordering when I spot a black cab’s lights outside on the dark country lane. If there is snow tonight as the forecast promised, I doubt a black cab—or any cab for that matter—will be coming back for him later. I roll my eyes when I see him walk indoors. So, he got a cab all the way here, then?

  Strolling towards me, he pins his eyes on mine. Ruben has everyone’s attention as he crosses the room, men and women alike. When he reaches me, he wraps his hand around my upper arm and lands a soft, gentle kiss on my cheek.

  “I got you a pint of beer,” I announce.

  He would usually drink hard liquor, but it’s my way of telling him he needs to lighten up.

  “Thanks.” He takes his pint off the bar and gestures we move into a quiet nook. It’s ten at night already and nobody’s eating anymore—the tables are anyone’s now.

  We perch by the window at a table for two, facing one another. He looks disturbed but also relieved to see me.

  “It’s nice,” he says, surveying the room.

  “It was done up not so long ago. My dad used to drink here back in the day. Says it’s too trendy now.” Also, there’s the small matter of him having been barred, but I’m ashamed to admit to Ruben that I
picked this place because my dad can’t get in.

  Ruben smiles and nods in that way men do when they’re listening but not really.

  “Listen, Freya—”

  “I haven’t eaten,” I cut him off, coming up with a hurried suggestion, “but I know the people here. They’d rustle something up for me. What about you? Hungry?”

  He looks up at the ceiling, chin twitching, then looks back down at me with an open face. “Fine, whatever you want. I’ll have what you’re having.”

  “Great!” I leap up, escaping the table as fast as possible. I catch Russell behind the bar and grin.

  “You do want some scran after all then, Freya?” he asks, his cherubic face broadening with a smile.

  “If you wouldn’t mind. Two plates of whatever you’ve got.”

  Russell leans over the bar towards me, gesturing at Ruben. “Looks like the man’s come to receive judgement, know what I mean?”

  I shake my head. “He’s just a friend.”

  “Sure he is. Food’s coming right up, darlin’.”

  “Thank you. How much do I owe you?” I take my purse out of my coat pocket, ready to cough up.

  “On the house. Skedaddle, young lady.”

  I give him a friendly wink. Russell and I bonded one night when I had to pick my father up from this very pub. I remember, I was at work when I got this call… Dad needed to be taken to hospital for stitches but no ambulance would come out and get him. I had no idea how he’d injured himself down the pub, but when I got to the Blue, it became clear he’d started a fight and the place was trashed. It’d shut the pub and none of the ambulance crew that came would take him because of how obnoxious he was.

  I guess as a landlord you see it all, but one shared look between Russell and me proved that my dad had surprised him—there is a type of drunken misconduct my father has made all his own. According to my dad, somebody had looked at him funny, but I later learnt from Russell that my father had started the fight and had got a few people involved, too by suggesting one punter’s wife had felt him up in the toilets. His erratic behaviour that time got him barred, but Russell always welcomes me back with a smile, often with something on the house, too. He’s one of the few people to have given me hope that there are good men out there—also that my dad is more transparent than he imagines.